Author: Max Weidman
Soon the sounds of dissent will blot out the lilting beauty of children’s voices singing carols. Soon the bitterness of cynics everywhere will poison the taste of cookies. A holiday which millions of children have been thinking about for a whole year will be debased, ridiculed, laughed at. Discontented adolescents everywhere—still soured by the discovery of Santa’s rouse and incapable of any real critique—will soon start the annual name-calling: Christmas is a sham holiday; Christmas is just a celebration of materialism; Christmas is just another arm of the massive capitalist machine.
Such criticisms have more than once passed my lips. In the days before I submitted to its spirit, my heart too was full of discontent with Christmas. In fact, such worries often still pang me in the weeks before those 36 reindeer feet land on my roof. But when I see the bounty of Christmas laid before me, all tied up with pretty bows and glossy paper, I am cleansed. In the initial moments, opening the first box, my heart and mind are atwitter with such authentic bliss that I can find no other word to describe it but “pure.”
That purity does not much resemble the feelings of the three wise men that brought gifts. I do not delude myself into the blasphemy that my purity resembles that of the baby who received those gifts. In fact, I am quite content to admit that the sensations warming me from the inside—like hot cocoa on a subzero night—have nothing whatsoever to do with Christ. In this moment, when I recognize myself as heretic, I am forced to examine the source of my jubilance.
The feeling doesn’t have much to do with my family either. I barely pay them heed as I tear through the presents they have provided me. I mumble my gratitude as I see their various names on the tags—but it is my own name, in that eminent space adjacent to the word “For,” upon which I train my eyes. Besides, I saw them a month ago and very little seems to have changed in the interstice. The turkey—some of which is still in the fridge—has simply been replaced with a duck or a goose. As for the various extended family members who fit into the “nuisance” column, if they have been replaced, it is only by some more cloying, more tedious and more contented versions of themselves.
As I try to remember the names of the reindeer (I infrequently make it past Blitzen), I realize that not only do I not care about Christ, I don’t even care about the mythos of Christmas. It matters little to me whether my toys were made by the little hands of elves or those of Chinese child labor. I recognize, in a rare moment of logic, that if every house left a beer for Santa as mine does, he would never get past the first few dozen. The maniacal glee in the eyes of my Jewish friends—at the prospect of reliving my experience of purity another seven times—lets me know that this exalted feeling is not only transnational but transcultural.
Finally, when I think about the 78 cents in change (along with a cherished piece of lint and a candy wrapper) I gave to the Salvation Army chick with a bell, I realize that even poor people deserve to feel this happy. When some little poor kid gets that G.I. Joe action figure—out of production since sometime in the ’80s and with a broken accessory gun—I’ll bet he’ll be so happy he cries.
Then suddenly, I understand it all. Christmas isn’t about other people, or the North Pole, or that stupid movie with Jimmy Stewart. Christmas is about me. It’s not simply about letting America define me as a consumer whore, which is a joyous experience in itself. It’s about cherishing every instant that the spirit of giving penetrates my chilled, frail body.
As I sit down with my little sister to watch the DVD of The O.C. she has just received—I see the connection once and for all. Like prime time soaps and MTV dating shows, Christmas is a guilty pleasure that I never feel guilty about.
Max Weidman is a junior ECLS major. He can be reached at mweidman@oxy.edu.This article has been archived, for more requests please contact us via the support system.